


monster

by orphan_account



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire Slayer, F/F, Femslash, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 20:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1791700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She turns her head to look at her girlfriend, but as her head moves she can swear she sees a pair of shining dark eyes in the dark. She sits up, not making a sound—though she probably should have—and watches the dark eyes watch Kenna. Then the dark eyes flicker to her, widen in the moonlight, and disappear. [Or, Kennary Vampire Slayer!AU.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	monster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thefelinequeen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefelinequeen/gifts).



Kenna comes home late at night, as usual, with the scents of vanilla and cedar chips and something metallic following her into the room. Mary keeps herself as still as she has the other nights, her eyes shut and her breathing normal, and listens to the quiet rustle of clothes behind her. A few minutes later, Kenna slips under the covers and her chilly toes press against Mary’s calves.

“Sorry I'm late,” she whispers, and Mary recognizes the metallic scent when a curtain of hair falls over her cheek as Kenna presses a kiss to the back of her neck.

It’s _blood_.

When Kenna rolls over and her breathing is deep and even, Mary allows herself to open her eyes. She doesn’t sit up, but she gnaws on the inside of her cheek, the ghost of Kenna’s lips still burning the back of her neck.

She turns her head to look at her girlfriend, but as her head moves she can swear she sees a pair of shining dark eyes in the dark. She sits up, not making a sound—though she probably should have—and watches the dark eyes watch Kenna. Then the dark eyes flicker to her, widen in the moonlight, and disappear.

* * *

Kenna wakes up to see Mary wrapped in a loose towel, lathering her legs with body lotion. Mary smiles and brushes back an errant curl. “Hey, sleepyhead.”

Kenna’s eyes drift down to the curve of her shoulders and something darkens in her eyes that makes Mary shiver. Kenna sits up, maneuvering so she’s behind Mary. “Pass me that lotion,” she says, and Mary smiles as Kenna starts massaging it into her back. Kenna presses kisses to her skin before she rubs the lotion into her skin, and eventually her satin-soft fingers dip underneath the towel.

Mary shuts her eyes, a familiar haze already closing up her throat and fogging her mind, but she pulls away from the next kiss that Kenna aims at her neck and turns around, readjusting her towel. She doesn’t even have to say anything before Kenna’s dark eyes flicker and she nods. No kisses accompany her hands this time, and Mary wishes she hadn’t pulled away. She should’ve saved the argument for a better time, probably after she’d made Kenna weak-limbed and heard her name said like a prayer a thousand times over.

But there won’t be any sex this morning, because the dark eyes still haunt her memories. Mary allows the towel to slip down to her waist, and Kenna’s hands touch long enough to make sure the lotion is doing its job properly. Mary lifts a leg to start rubbing the lotion over her calf and Kenna apologizes out of nowhere.

Mary doesn’t turn around. “Whatever are you sorry for?”

“I’m sorry I’m out so late all the time. My job… it has terrible hours.” Kenna starts massaging the lotion on the front of her shoulders, her fingertips brushing her clavicle and lower. The entire room smells of blackberry and lavender, but Mary doesn’t mind. It drives out the blood and cedar chips that seem to follow Kenna wherever she goes.

“You smelled like blood last night,” she murmurs, her words carefully chosen, and she watches Kenna’s half-formed reflection in the window for a response.

The pressure on her shoulders tightens, just slightly, and Kenna glances down at her bare back before resuming her lotion massage. She doesn’t say anything, so Mary says, “And you basically have Natasha Romanoff’s outfit from _The Avengers_ in the laundry basket. Did you get a promotion?”

“Mary,” Kenna warns, her voice tight but her hands working steadily. That’s one thing she can admire about her girlfriend, at least. She can keep her head level in stressful situations, which Mary had a feeling this conversation was going to become very soon.

“Did you join MI6 without telling me? It’s all right if you did, but I’d rather you say you’re working for the government rather than being a waitress for a trashy restaurant out in the country.” Mary turns around and stares at Kenna, grabbing her hand and pressing a kiss to the slender knuckles. “I’d rather you tell me the truth.”

Kenna brings her other hand up to brush her thumb across her cheekbone. “Mary,” she sighs, eyes fluttering shut. She shakes her head slightly and opens her eyes again, dropping her hand. “I can’t.”

“There was someone in here last night, five minutes after you came home. Dark brown eyes. You know them?”

Kenna responds by practically jumping off the bed and lunging for the closet. She tosses a T-shirt and athletic shorts at Mary before whipping out her cell. As she dials the number, she gestures for Mary to get dressed. “Why? What’s going on?”

“We’re not safe here anymore,” Kenna says, holding the phone up to her ear. Mary would laugh if the fear in Kenna’s eyes weren’t so _blatant_ , so she tugs the shirt over her head and pulls the shorts up to her hips, fastening the button and wringing out her hair into the towel. Kenna disappears into the hallway, and Mary catches another whiff of cedar and blood.

Kenna makes sure to shut all the windows and light sandalwood candles everywhere in their apartment before they go. Kenna locks the door behind her and throws away the key.

When a black car pulls up in front of the sidewalk they sit on in front of some café and Kenna pulls her into the backseat, Mary allows herself to be afraid for the first time.

* * *

They stay in a warehouse in the country, with only less than a handful of people for company. Four people named Bash, Francis, Rowan and Olivia, and all of them either mind their own business or talk only to Kenna. Mary and Francis glance at each other more than once, but Francis sees how her fingers entwine with Kenna’s and she sees how his thread through Olivia’s, so they settle for vacant smiles and carry on with their lives.

Kenna never leaves her alone, and sometimes she’s so tense Mary feels she could bounce a euro on her back and catch it as it sprang back up. It’s their third night at the “safe house” before Kenna submits to a back massage. It is the first time since they got there that Mary feels her girlfriend is fully present with her.

“So, when are you going to tell me the real reason we’re here?” Mary asks, starting out at her lower back. “Jesus, Kenna, your muscles are like stone. Have you had a moment to relax since we’ve got here?”

“No. I’ve been too worried,” Kenna sighs into the mattress. Mary presses her thumbs to the small of Kenna’s back and smoothes her fingers sideways, trailing down to her ribs.  There’s a long moment of silence as Mary awaits the answer to her first question, and then Kenna says, “Vampires.”

Mary isn’t sure she heard right and stops the backrub. “I’m sorry?”

Kenna turns her head so half her face is pressed against the mattress. “I’m a vampire hunter, Mary—I’ve been one even before I met you.”

They’d only met two years ago, so that didn’t tell her much. “Vampires,” she repeats, her voice flat and incredulous. “You’re telling me they’re _real_?”

“Yes. Real as me, and far more dangerous, depending on who you talk to.” Half of Kenna’s face smiles, and Mary leans down and brushes a kiss against her cheekbone, her fingertips pushing her shirt farther and farther up her back. Kenna pushes herself up on her elbows and turns her head to kiss Mary. Her lips are soft and dry, and a comfort that Mary hasn’t had since she saw the eyes in the doorway.

Mary breaks the kiss only to pull the shirt off completely, her breath hitching in the back of her throat when she remembers she hadn’t felt a bra during her massage. “Lock the door,” Kenna whispers, and as Mary gets up feeling the heat of Kenna’s eyes on her, she’s also acutely aware of Francis being their next door neighbor.

She locks the door and sends Kenna her best wolf-like grin before she’s jumping back to the bed. Kenna smiles as she catches Mary from the propulsion and peppers her face with kisses, whispering _Mary sweet Mary_ —but her words soon turn to breathy moans when Mary sneaks a hand past the waistband of her shorts.

Soon they lie tangled up in each other, Mary resting her head on Kenna’s chest and circling her navel with a finger absently. “I believe you, about the vampires,” she tells Kenna, who drapes a leg over Mary’s knee in response. Kenna sits up to straddle her, then leans down and brushes her lips against hers.

“I’ll protect you,” she says, a hint of ferocity in her tone, and Mary shuts her eyes as Kenna’s mouth trails down her neck.

“ _I’m_ not the one slaying bloodsuckers,” she retorts, her voice huskier than it should be as Kenna continues her journey downwards. Then there is nothing else in the world but _KennaKennaKenna_ , and Mary’s fingers curl in her hair as stars explode behind her eyes.

* * *

Francis seems to be the leader of the safe house, and it only takes a week before he considers Mary trustworthy enough to leave the safe house without a guard. Mary grabs her wallet, returns Rowan’s clothes to her, and walks into her room to see Kenna in her Natasha Romanoff outfit.

A cedar stake is tucked into a loop of her utility belt, which is full of other pockets Mary doesn’t want to open and see what’s inside. She feels her throat close up at the sight of Kenna looking ready to go  to some kind of MI6 secret battle. Kenna looks up from stuffing the sharpest wooden hammer she’d ever seen into her utility belt and stills, but doesn’t falter. Kenna never falters.

“When were you going to tell me about this?” Mary asks, hating the way her voice seems higher-pitched than it should be—but she can’t tell if she’s angry about Kenna lying to her ( _again_ ) or frightened. She’s never seen a vampire herself, still half-believes them to be stories, but Kenna looks solemn like she is going to war and it’s as if yesterday night had never happened.

Kenna nods to a note on Mary’s pillow, and Mary tears it in two before she returns to Kenna and pulls her in for a savage kiss. Her fingers knot in her hair, her teeth nip at Kenna’s lips—Kenna returns the ferocity ten times over, but Mary is the one who wants to mark her for her own, make sure her fingertips left memories in their wake so that Kenna would only think of her during her mission; she wants Kenna to miss her the way she’d missed Kenna during those long lonely nights before they’d left everything behind.

Kenna leaves bruised lips in her wake and Mary leaves a fast-forming hickey that Kenna has no time to cover up. Mary steps away and straightens her shirt and her hair, her cheeks flushed but satisfaction thrumming through her veins at Kenna’s similarly stunned expression. “I have to go,” Kenna says, but it’s not an excuse to leave. It’s an _I want to stay but I can’t_.

Mary crosses her arms and resists her impulse to kiss her again. “Come back to me,” she says simply. Kenna steps forward, then draws back with a small nod. As she opens the door, Mary says, “And no more lying, Kenna. I mean it.”

Kenna studies her with clear brown eyes and nods again. Then she’s gone, off on her vampire-slaying mission, and after an hour of sitting Mary remembers she’s supposed to be shopping for new clothes so she wouldn’t have to wear Rowan’s all the time.

* * *

Francis drops her off at the same café she and Kenna had sat at and tells her he’ll pick her up in an hour. Mary twirls the bundle of cash between her hands and watches him for a long while before she nods. Francis clears his throat once and peels out of there as if he remembered Olivia was still at the safe house. Mary watches the car disappear into traffic and gets shopping.

Ten minutes before Francis is supposed to pick her up, she enters the café and orders. As she’s sipping her tea, waiting for the familiar black car, a giggling, lovey-dovey couple enters the doors. Mary finds herself watching them for only a moment, but it’s a moment too long—the man seems to feel her gaze and turns, his smile still wide and his hand still clasped in his girlfriend’s.

His eyes find Mary’s. She almost looks down at her tea, almost pretends like she hadn’t been watching the two. But instead of cowering, she straightens in her seat—the man has the same eyes she’d seen in the apartment.

Mary stands up and gathers her things, draining her tea and pretending like this was all on schedule. Her gaze is on the windows instead of the man, searching for Francis’s blond head or the black car, and that is why she doesn’t see his hand coming.

The fingertips brush against her forehead, right between her eyebrows, and Mary stumbles to the ground, dropping her bag of clothes. A headache blossoms underneath her skull as her tongue grows heavy in her mouth—no one in the café seems to notice that she fell, no one is moving, _why isn’t anyone helping her?_ —and the woman with wild brown curls down to her waist interacts with people like nothing is happening.

The man crouches down and tilts Mary’s face up, his dark eyes gleaming in the sunlight. He is impossibly pale and handsome and when he smiles Mary can see the sharp point of a canine. “Lola love,” he calls, and no one but Mary and the woman seem to hear him. “We’ve found her.”

Lola scoops the shopping bag up the same way the man scoops up Mary, and her vision begins to blur just as she makes out the edges of a black car pulling up on the street. “Francis,” she whispers, though her mouth is too dry to actually speak, and she thinks of Kenna promising to come back to her. She didn’t make the same promise.

She wants to laugh at the irony but instead blacks out as she’s being buckled into a car.

* * *

 

A weight holding her down makes her open her eyes with a gasping breath. It’s almost too dark to see, but Lola and the man are pale enough to make out their shapes in the darkness. Lola’s sitting on her legs and has pinned Mary’s arms to her side; Mary opens her mouth to scream, but the man holds his bleeding wrist to her mouth instead.

Thick, hot blood fills her mouth. She wants to spit it out and scream for help, but there’s too much of it and the man’s arm is still blocking her mouth. She swallows it down, only for more blood to fill her mouth. It washes over her tongue and thickens in the back of her throat; Mary gags and tries to turn her head, but the man’s other hand cups the back of her head, keeping her in place.

On her third swallow, Lola leans down and sinks her teeth into her wrist. There’s no pain, but Mary screams anyway, shutting her eyes and bucking wildly, desperately trying to get away, but Lola feels like lead on her legs and the man’s hand is a steel jaw encircling the back of her head.

Mary screams against the man’s bleeding arm as Lola lifts up Mary’s shirt and bites into her hip, inflicting similar bites across her body. Her lungs burn—she can’t breathe, not with all the blood filling her mouth—and then, suddenly, the vampires stand up.

Mary chokes down the blood and scrambles away from Lola and her companion, trying to breathe normally through her nose but not quite succeeding. Lola entwines her fingers through the man’s and murmurs “Remy.”

Remy gives Mary a thoughtful look, a small smile gracing his lips. “Thank you, Mary.”

“Go to hell,” she spits. Blood spatters on his knuckles, and she licks her teeth and cringes at the taste. It’s cloying, too sugary, not metallic like blood should be at all. The vampires give her one last smile—they’re demons, Kenna, you’re right, oh God—and leave the room in a shadow of pale flashing teeth.

For a moment, Mary thinks she has an opportunity to escape—but then the flames begin. She screams herself hoarse, begging for Kenna, or even Francis or Rowan, anyone, to come and help her, but no one comes as the fires lick down her body and _she can’t breathe_.

* * *

She wakes up bathed in cold sweat with torn sheets underneath her, and the first thing she hears is a heartbeat. Everything is crystal-like and beautiful, even with the too-bright sun shining in the room. Mary gets out of the bed and hisses when her feet brush against the sunlight. As she sits back on the bed, out of danger, her eyes widen at the blisters forming on her toe knuckles.

_No. No. Nonononono—_

She hears the heartbeat again, and her head swivels like she can’t control herself. The sound is warm and dull, nothing special, but something about it makes her throat ache. She leaves the other side of the bed to pad to the door, and when she opens the door, she smells cedar and vanilla—and blood.

Pain erupts in her jaw suddenly, and Mary crumples to her knees as twin things rip out of her gums to stab her lower mouth. When the pain fades, she stands up and prods sharp canines with her tongue. Her hand tightens on the wooden doorframe, crushing it, and Mary hisses when splinters embed themselves into her palm.

_Shit. Shitshitshit Kenna run Kenna please go now—_

As she follows the heartbeat, she pulls the splinters out of her hand, marveling every time the skin smoothes over and the wound disappears within moments. Every step is heavy, and though she breathes, it feels useless because the painful pressure in her lungs don’t abate.

She turns a corner, into a room that looks like a library, and stops short. Her fangs throb at the sight of Kenna’s neck, and Mary covers her mouth to hide them. Remy notices her first, a wide smile spreading across his face. “Look, Kenna, there she is. Feel free to take her back.”

Kenna turns, and her entire face blanches. “I’ll kill you,” she whispers, though Mary’s not sure if she’s addressing her or Remy. She turns around and tugs a cedar stake free. “I’ll fucking _kill_ you!”

Mary takes a step forward, the pressure in her lungs intensifying. She can’t breathe, she needs air—“You say that now, Kenna, but you’re the only one with the hemoglobin Mary needs to breathe,” Lola says, her smile sweet and dangerous. “It may be that Mary kills you all before you ever get the chance to kill us.”

Kenna whirls around, wielding her stake in one hand and rolling up one of her sleeves to reveal a slender arm. “You need human blood, Mary? C’mon, go ahead.”

Mary takes a step forward, but then her legs give out and she falls to her hands and knees, revealing her fangs. Kenna flinches visibly, but she kneels next to Mary.

“As long as I don’t swallow any blood, I’m fine,” Kenna tells her. “You should know that, right? Vampire saliva can only bond with erythrocytes that lack hemoglobin, so, vampire blood.” She smiles, her disgust half-smothered in her eyes. “Let’s get you some oxygen, okay?”

Mary tries to whisper, but she can’t. Her eyes are focused on the arteries in Kenna’s wrist, pulsing and warm and smelling like vanilla and cedar. “You can do it, Mary,” Kenna urges. “I trust you.”

She nudges Mary’s lips with her wrist. Mary shuts her eyes as her (wide-open, _damn her_ ) jaws snap shut, and hot blood fills her mouth. One swallow and the pain in her lungs disappears. Mary finds the strength to grab Kenna’s arm and sucks harder; with every gulp, the pain in her chest lightens. She drinks and licks and sucks until—

“Mary.”

Mary looks up and meets Kenna’s eyes. Lola and Remy have left the library to hover by the front door; she hadn’t even noticed them until Kenna spoke. Remy opens the front door. Mary’s teeth retract on instinct, and she pulls the cedar stake out from underneath Kenna’s arm and stands up. The wood makes her fingertips tingle, but she doesn’t care. Lola’s slipping away, but Remy has to turn around to shut the door—Mary aims and throws the stake like a javelin.

She doesn’t even blink before it buries itself in his chest; Remy gasps and falls to his knees, black-red blood pooling around the wood. Mary stalks forward and smiles as she rests her hands on the stake, pushing it in deeper, angling it towards it heart. She twists and pushes and smiles at Remy’s cries of pain until his eyes glaze over and he stops twitching.

“Mary.”

Kenna, again. Mary twists Remy’s head around until she hears a snap—just in case—and pushes him onto the porch, shutting the front door behind him. She turns to Kenna, who’s looking at her with horror and half-smothered disgust still in her eyes. Blood is trickling down her arm to stain the floor, and she looks paler than usual. Mary’s throat tightens, both with fear and with bloodlust. “I’m sorry. I took too much.”

“Don’t apologize.” Kenna’s voice is strained and whisper-soft, and her fingers curl around the staircase banister to turn her knuckles white. “I’m proud of you.”

Mary kneels and pats her down, ignoring the fangs that throb against her lower lip, and swallows when she finds a phone in one of the pouches on the Batman utility belt. She takes it out and dials, pressing the phone between her shoulder and ear as she rips off the hem of her shirt.

Francis picks up on the first ring. “Kenna, where the hell are you?”

“Francis.” Mary wraps the fabric around Kenna’s arm and pulls Kenna down to sit on the staircase, tucking her head between her knees.

“Mary? You’re safe?”

“Something like that.” Mary breathes through her mouth so she can’t smell the blood, but she can hear Kenna’s heartbeat, which makes her fangs ache just as much as any scent of blood. She wants more, she needs more—she can already feel the pressure in her lungs building—but Kenna needs her right now. “Listen, I need you to track this phone and come here as soon as you can. Kenna’s hurt. She needs an ambulance.”

“Bash is already on it. I’m heading to my car now. Can you stay with her?”

Kenna groans, and Mary accidentally breathes through her nose. Her fangs elongate like lightning and prick her bottom lip. “No, not really.”

Francis’s confusion is evident in his tone, and she sighs when she hears an engine in the background. “Right, well, stay on the line. I’m coming.”

“Thank you, Francis.” Mary finishes tying the tourniquet and presses the open phone into Kenna’s good hand. Kenna lifts her head up, her face pale and sweat beading along her forehead. “Kenna, I can’t stay here—I’m afraid of what I’ll do to you.”

Kenna rests her head against the railing and nods. “Where will you go?”

Mary pulls out another stake from her utility belt and smiles. “Lady Lola still needs to be found.”

Somewhere, far away, she can hear a speeding car coming closer—her head turns toward the noise, even though there can’t be any car down the street, not right now—and she leans forward to brush a kiss against Kenna’s forehead. Kenna makes an impatient noise and pulls away. “None of that bloody sentimentality,” she says, pulling Mary down for a proper kiss.

Mary drops the stake and tangles her fingers in Kenna’s hair. Kenna sucks in her bottom lip and nibbles, prompting a breathy moan from Mary that Kenna catches in an open-mouthed kiss. _I missed you_ , Mary wants to say, but she wants Kenna’s blood more and that scares her more than anything.

Somewhere close, a car engine stops, and she hears a new heartbeat. Kenna’s hands push at her shoulders and she pulls away from the kiss, leaving Mary wet-lipped and panting. Kenna’s cheeks are flushed pink, but determination still glints the same way in her cinnamon eyes. “Francis is here,” she whispers, and the footsteps outside turn into a run. “Mary, you have to go. Leave through the back. Don’t let him see you.”

Mary nods and steps away, picking her stake up again. She wants to start down the hallway, wants to leave Kenna to Francis’s care, but she can’t pick up her feet and leave. “I have to go,” she whispers, but it’s not an excuse to leave. It’s an _I want to stay but I can’t_.

Kenna half-smiles. “Come back to me,” she says simply. Mary can hear Francis’s heartbeat just outside the front door and his half-whispered “what the hell?”

Mary nods, wanting to stay, wanting to kiss her just one more time, but Francis’s hand is on the door and—she runs down the hall faster than should be possible. She hesitates on the back porch just long enough to know that Kenna is safe; then she slips out into the forest with vanilla and cedar clinging to her clothes and Lola’s scent in her mouth.


End file.
